Plurality, Consciousness & Militancy are all inter-related. Understanding any one of these three concepts hinges on understanding the other two. If you master these three concepts and their relationships to one another, controlling your POPs, and through them your society at large, will be simple, and your government—whatever its form—can continue to exist peacefully until the end of the game. Whatever you do, do not make the mistake of ignoring these concepts—it will come back to haunt you.

Plurality

Plurality is defined as your population’s demand for social reforms and democracy. This value—a percent visible in your country’s political screen—can be thought to stand for how Liberal your country is becoming. Plurality increases Consciousness, which for democratic governments makes your citizens vote more in line with their desires. In this way, POPs will accept their government which reduces their militancy. Similarly, in an autocratic government plurality increases militancy since POPs will largely believe government does not represent them. The minimum value is 1%, the maximum is 100%.

In a sense, Plurality could be expressed as the maximum consciousness your POPs will achieve. High plurality will draw low consciousness POPs to higher levels. Plurality increases over the course of the game, reflecting the changing attitudes of this time period. Certain technological research, such as Ideological Thought, lead to inventions which increase plurality.
Plurality will increase with consciousness * 2 / 90 each month.

Acts as a modifier (... x Plurality) to the increase of consciousness from literacy

Increases needs (... x (1 + Plurality))

Consciousness

Consciousness is your population’s desire to fulfill their own self-interests. Consciousness is what allows segments of your population to see themselves as interest groups, band together, and try to gain a voice in government. The higher your population’s Consciousness, the better their political votes reflect their actual desires. This way, if your population is majority conservative, they are more likely to vote into power a conservative government than a liberal one, which can happen if Consciousness is very low. Overall, though, low Consciousness POPs tend to reelect the sitting government.

Consciousness also increases POP needs, by (1+con/10).
This means that if a POP has a con of 10, it requires 1+10/10 = 2 times the normal amount of goods to fulfill their needs.

Clergy: A Clergyman in a state will reduce the Consciousness of all POPs throughout that state, even if they are of different religions. This works because the game constructs religion as a social factor open to all classes, regardless of creed, color, or wealth. Therefore, religions utilized wisely in the game will prevent classes from discovering their own political identities, and thus becoming angry at the current government.

Enacting Reforms: Doing this creates a “Trust in Government” feeling among your POPs, where they feel certain that the government is watching out for their needs. Because they feel this way, they have less of a need to form their own political groups, and hence, lower Consciousness. There is a -0.01% Consciousness modifier for each 10% over 50% your government spends on the social reform budget. Over funding, however, is not always possible to do because, first, you may have a Laissez-Faire party in power (see section “Politics”) or it may be far too expensive.

Militancy

Militancy represents how likely your population is to revolt against your rule. Militancy is the bane of every new player, leading to massive headaches and frustrating games. When your entire country seems to hate you no matter what you do, there doesn’t seem to be much point in continuing the game. Understanding Militancy helps prevent this.